The next year, as SMA met at America’s Happiest Place, Disney World, the Magic Kingdom became the launch site of marketing education’s most effective teaching innovation distribution vehicle. The first session was an immediate hit and the session room became SMA’s Happiest Place.

Teaching Moment’s growth

SMA members were immediately drawn to the Teaching Moment’s unique format: Fast-paced (each presenter has 3-minutes to share their innovation), fun, and positive. The audience rewards each presenter with Thunderous Applause, contributing to the energetic, supportive atmosphere.

The demand for Teaching Moments has grown ever since. The single debut session in Orlando offered 13 presenters selected from the Societies most honored teachers. Today Teaching Moments is open to all. By 2016 it had grown to four conference sessions featuring 41 presenters. Kesha Coker, SMA’s Director of Electronic Communication, became a regular Teaching Moments presenter in 2013. In 2015 she joined Jeff and Joel as co-Chair.

Publication history

Readers can learn more about the Teaching Moment’s concept in the MER article by Tanner & Whalen, 2013). In 2016 MER first published abstracts of 25 Teaching Moments innovations presented at the SMA 2015 meeting in New Orleans. Publication continued in MER as Whalen and Coker’s (2017) paper offered 26 abstracts from the Atlanta sessions. These teaching innovations were also abstracted in the Proceedings of the 2015 and 2016 SMA Conferences.